


Don't Go Chasing Rabbits

by Skylar102



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Feels, Alec Lightwood Needs A Hug, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Destruction, Hurt Alec Lightwood, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Kaiju (Pacific Rim), M/M, Memories, Minor Character Death, New York City, Past Character Death, Protective Magnus Bane, Tags Are Hard, The Drift (Pacific Rim), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26789533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylar102/pseuds/Skylar102
Summary: Hotshot Magnus Bane has convinced Marshall Garroway's son, Alec, to become his co-pilot. Their first attempt at drifting does not go the way that Magnus had envisioned.
Relationships: Luke Garroway & Alec Lightwood, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 37
Kudos: 103





	Don't Go Chasing Rabbits

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo yeah. As promised the one-shot that I wrote of a Malec Pacific Rim AU. If this gets enough hits, maybe I'll write the rest. After Dragon's Bond though, I can only handle one chaptered fic at a time skdjfsljfdsldfk
> 
> **Make sure to read the tags!!**
> 
> While it is not a Malec death, a death still occurs in the fic so please be careful if choosing to read this!

_“He’s chasing the rabbit!”_ Simon shouts over the comms. _“You gotta bring him back!”_

“Alexander,” Magnus starts hesitantly. Alec is staring forward, eyes blank as he stares at something that’s not there. “Don’t engage in the memory.”

His partner is not listening, no matter how many times Magnus calls his name. Magnus starts to feel a tug on his side of the drift and before he knows it, he’s being pulled into Alec’s head.

Magnus lands on his knees, the ground beneath him has changed. He’s no longer in the jaeger’s cockpit but on a street in what looks to be New York City. The sky is cloudy and dark as ash falls from the sky, giving the street the feel of winter. He recognizes some of the skyscrapers from when he visited the Big Apple a few years back before the breach opened. Looking at himself he’s still in his suit which means this is a memory, but not one of his.

A loud roar echoes through the empty streets while rockets and grinding metal follow behind. In the distance, the sounds of people screaming can be heard. Dread starts to pool in his stomach, he remembers this attack. Manhattan was destroyed in a single day by two kaiju that had slipped past the walls. It was America’s most catastrophic day.

“We have to keep moving!” A voice screams, recognizable to Magnus’ ears.

“Alexander?” Magnus calls out. He turns around, looking for any sign of his co-pilot.

Alec’s file never said anything about him being in New York at the time of this attack. Most of his co-pilot’s file was secret and redacted, thanks to Luke. So even when he did get his hands on the file, it didn’t show much.

“Come on!” Alec’s voice is getting louder. Magnus turns in time to see a young man, probably early 20s running around the corner, hand holding onto a little boy, a clear age gap between them. He knows how much family means to Alec, the way he talks about Luke is a clear sign of that.

Alec’s never mentioned anyone else.

“Mom! Dad! Izzy!” The child cries, trying to pull the opposite direction that Alec is going. “We left them!”

“There’s no time, Max,” Alec urges. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” Max shouts, now really struggling against Alec’s hold. The child’s piercing scream sends a shiver down his spine, he doesn’t have to hear anything else to know what happened to Alec’s family. Alec seems to make up his mind and picks up Max and begins to run at full speed, determination set on his face. Max is banging and hitting Alec’s back, trying to push away. “I want to go back!”

Right where they turned the corner, the tail of a kaiju slams into the ground, shaking the street they’re on. Max screams out in fear and Alec loses his balance momentarily before continuing to run. There’s no way they can get out of the zone in time. Alec holds his brother tight to his chest, no way for him to accidentally drop his brother. Max has stopped fighting him and is now clinging to Alec, still crying out for his family.

“I’m going to get us to a bunker, Max,” Alec says, voice shaky and out of breath. “I promise you, I’m going to get us to safety.”

Words spoken too late as the skyscraper behind them begins to collapse. Magnus spots the silhouette of the kaiju that slammed into the building. Alec looks behind him and curses, pace somehow getting faster to outrun the rubble and shattered glass falling around them. He covers the top of Max’s head to protect him from debris. Alec doesn’t seem to notice the sign above him and Max begins to fall.

“Alec, watch out!” He doesn’t know why he yelled or why he’s running toward the two brothers. This is a memory, this already happened. Alec lived through this, experienced this.

_And now he’s reliving it because of you,_ the voice in the back of his head tells him.

He shakes off the thought, he can feel guilty later when he snaps Alec out of this memory. The sign barely misses the two, slamming behind them causing Alec to fall. The force from the sign launches them forward. Alec tries to hold onto Max, but the force of the sign separates the two. The younger brother rolls further away, cries becoming worse as Max gets covered in scratches and cuts.

“Max!” Alec shouts, scrambling to his feet, rushing to get to his brother. There’s a horrible gash on his left leg, the one that Magnus has seen as a scar when he knocked on the man’s door a few days ago. Alec never gave him an answer on how he got the injury, guess he got it.

“Alec!” Max sobs, arms reaching out for his brother, but making no move to get up.

Magnus watches as Alec struggles to run, falling more times than actually moving forward before his leg completely gives up on him. Magnus doesn’t know why he kneels next to Alec as the young man struggles to get up.

“Come on, Alec,” Magnus begs trying to get the man’s attention. “You need to wake up. This isn’t real, you’re following the rabbit. You need to snap out of it.”

Alec doesn’t pay attention to him, doesn’t acknowledge him. It’s like he’s a ghost watching this all happen, which is true. Magnus wasn’t here when this all happened, he was in London watching the attack happen live on television with Catarina and Ragnor. He remembers the journalists on TV trying to hold back tears as they reported on the massacre that was happening on the other side of the globe.

Alec lets out a sob and a curse at his leg for not moving. Max’s cries ringing through his ears as his brother is still not moving from his spot on the ground. Alec tries to crawl his way over to his brother when an explosion happens above them. Alec looks up with wide eyes as the building next to Max begins to crumble.

Magnus doesn’t want to see this.

“Max!” Alec screams as he watches the rubble fall over where his brother was not seconds ago. Debris lands near Alec and he curls his body into the fetal position, protecting his head. Alec waits for his turn as the building crumbles and falls around him.

When the dust finally settles, Alec coughs inhaling dust and tries to sit up, but his legs are trapped. A slab of concrete is resting on his legs, he blames the adrenaline flaring through his veins that he didn’t even feel it land on his lower body.

“Come on,” he grunts, pushing at the debris. “Come on!” He lets out a cry as he gets his legs out, the gash on his lower leg looks worse than before, but he doesn’t have time to think about it. Alec sits up, looking around frantically.

“Max!” He calls out, coughing as the dust becomes worse around him. “Max!”

Alec passes by Magnus who has fallen to his knees. Magnus hardly pays mind to Alec as his eyes can't leave the small hand sticking out of the debris not ten feet away. He wants to reach out and grab the hand and pray that it squeezes back. Instead, he watches as Alec injures himself more crawling through the debris, calling for his little brother.

When Alec spots the hand, Magnus wants to go to the middle of the Atlantic and destroy the breach with his own damn hands.

Alec scrambles over to the hand, grasping it. “I’m here, Max. I’m here,” Alec reassures as he tries to dig through the rubble.

“Alexander,” Magnus whispers, his heart shattering the more this memory plays out. He didn’t think it would be this bad, Alec always said that he didn’t want to be a jaeger pilot. After that training session with Alec, he could clearly see the compatibility between them. Pair that with the times he and Alec sat on a rafter looking over the Jaegers in the dome, it was a match made in heaven.

He pushed too hard, let his egotistical side overpower his compassionate side and now his partner is relieving his worst memory. He should have paid more attention to Alec and seen the signs. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, he knows he fucked up. Colossally fucked up and he knows that Garroway is never going to let him anywhere near his son after this.

“Please wake up,” Magnus begs, hand trembling as it reaches out to grab Alec’s shoulder but drops before he touches it.

Alec still doesn’t hear him, not that Magnus is truly trying at this point. He should shake Alec’s shoulders, beg him to wake up, to snap out of this memory, but the sobs that leave Alec’s lips have him freezing as he uncovers Max’s body.

“Max, I gotcha buddy hold on,” Alec says as he tries to move a particularly heavy piece of concrete. “Move, move, move, _please_ move.”

Alec doesn’t have time to move the rubble as the ground starts to shake again. He looks behind him and sees the kaiju that’s been terrorizing the city, Raiju: Category 4. Alec starts to curse as the giant monster starts to charge towards him. He doubles his efforts to get Max out from under the rubble.

“Fuck!” Alec screams when he realizes it's fruitless. He raises his hands at the creature to protect himself.

_“Magnus!”_ Simon’s voice cuts in clear. _“He’s activated the particle cannon! You need to wake him up!”_

_“Everyone evacuate the ops center!”_ Magnus hears Maia yell through comms.

“Alexander, you need to snap out of this memory,” Magnus pleads. He looks back at the kaiju watching as it approaches, turning back towards Alec. “You survived Alec, you made it out. You don’t have to be afraid of Raiju anymore. We took care of it a decade ago. None of this is real!”

_“The power line!”_ Jace yells on the other side. _“Get the main powerline.”_

_“Not as easy as it looks!”_ Simon shouts back.

The kaiju is right upon then when a loud boom reverberates through the empty street. Alec ducks in fear, but when he looks up, a rocket is flying overhead at Raiju knocking the monster back. Alec stares at the monster in shock, as the ground continues to shake beneath him.

Magnus is about to try one more time as Alec turns to look behind him, but Magnus feels the neurological connection start to fade. He blinks and he’s back in the cockpit inside Mayhem. He barely pays mind to the sound of the jaeger deactivating or the voices shouting in his ear, Magnus is throwing off his helmet and disconnecting himself from the platform. He rushes to the other side, catching Alec as the man falls to the ground, no longer connected as well.

“I got you, Alexander.” Alec doesn’t seem to hear a word that he says, he’s eyes unfocused staring ahead of him. Magnus takes Alec’s helmet off and runs a hand through the man’s hair, trying to get him to come back.

Magnus curses himself again for pushing Alec to drift with him. He got too excited about the idea of finding another person who is drift compatible with him after Ragnor.

“Please,” Alec whispers and Magnus shushes him. He whispers words of comfort into his ear as Alec becomes aware of their surroundings again.

The door of the cockpit opens and Magnus sees Luke walk in, face unreadable. His posture is stiff as he walks towards the two. The man is obviously pissed off at him, Magnus doesn’t have to see anger on his face to know that.

“Sir,” Magnus trails off at the hand raised before him.

“I would like to take care of my son,” Luke says, not letting Magnus have a chance to reply before he’s taking Alec from his hold. Luke gets an arm around Alec and slowly the father and son make their way out of the cockpit leaving Magnus on the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Skylar10211)
> 
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> 
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